BEYOND THE BEACH: Happiness, camaraderie found in South Shore neighborhoods

Editor's note: As the Ledger celebrates its 175th anniversary, we look at some of the places that have defined the South Shore over the years. From Weymouth’s Wessagussett to Scituate’s Humarock to Marshfield’s Green Harbor, residents feel “a sense of home.”

Editor's note: As the Ledger celebrates its 175th anniversary, we look at some of the places that have defined the South Shore over the years.

Tiger lilies and melon pinks are what delight Marilyn Koch most, but ask the 79-year-old what she knows about her history-steeped neighborhood of Wessagussett, and she quickly reels off a rather chilling chapter.

“The first hanging of a white person (in America) was done right out my kitchen window,” she said, looking over to the hillside by the yacht club. “In those days they hung ’em up for everybody to see.”

Koch’s history lesson shot back to the early 17th century when the first English settlers on this North Weymouth cove tried to appease angry Wampanoags’ call for justice after they fingered a 15-year-old settler as a corn thief. But instead of hanging the teenager, the English tightened a noose around the neck of one of their weaker brethren – a sick, old man soon to die anyway.

Wessagussett is much tamer in the 21st century and like other South Shore neighborhoods that sprung from the earliest settlements, it teems with history and a strong sense of identity.

“It’s a real neighborhood. I’ve got people looking out for me up there and over there,” Koch said, pointing to either side of her white house just behind sea wall.

It’s a common refrain – this sense of rootedness that people living in small neighborhoods on the South Shore express.

From Wessagussett’s tangle of narrow lanes hugging a hilly coastline to Wollaston’s tree-lined streets with Victorian houses and bungalows and Green Harbor’s preserved homes, history clings to street names and granite markers. But its residents really cherish the close-knit quality that survives today.

A couple blocks from Koch’s beachfront home at the junction of streets with tongue-twisting names – Witawamut, Pecksuot and Wadaga – you can hear the metallic ping of a baseball bat swatting a hardball and the cheers of so many moms and dads.

Witawamut and Pecksuot are the names of two Native American warriors killed by Myles Standish and his men almost 400 years ago.

But the battle these days plays out on the ball field between North Weymouth’s 6th-grade and 7th-grade teams.

“This is Dorchester-light, the first step to get over to the richer towns,” said Joe Brennan, smiling behind the center field fence as he described the neighborhood where he has lived since 1999.

Brennan, who heads up this youth baseball league, said he and many of his Wessagussett neighbors are transplants from more urban settings such as South Boston and Dorchester.

“It’s a little closer knit here than other places,” he said. “If my kids act up, I find out about it from four streets over.”

Page 2 of 2 - A personal touch at this baseball field is the outfield scoreboard, handpainted by Brennan’s wife, and updated not with lights but with yellow chalk.

“The left fielder gets yelled at (by the umpire), ‘Put up a 2!’” said Brennan, laughing.

In Wollaston, Debra Randall took a break from walking her dog down Elm Avenue and recalled when she moved here nine years ago.

“I came from Hingham, where the people were not exactly friendly. I told my kids we’re going somewhere where neighbors will be friendly,” said Randall, a high school teacher. “My neighbors came out in their bathrobes to greet us, and my kids looked at me like I was psychic.”

Randall knows that these flatlands were once farm fields, and she adores her arts and crafts-style bungalow, built in 1912.

But history is not static, and Wollaston is now a multiethnic hotbed.

That is what drew Gehan Hegazy and her family to settle in Wollaston a few houses from the post office, where her four kids were running a lemonade stand on a muggy day.

“I was first in Revere,” said Hegazy, who is from Egypt. “I didn’t like it there. After 9/11, people called me bad names.”

In Wollaston, with its influx of immigrants, Hegazy feels more comfortable. “It’s a nice combination of Chinese and Americans … very friendly,” she said. “And Beechwood Knoll School, you feel like it’s a private school. Everyone is helping you.”

Down in Green Harbor, Marshfield’s southernmost village, 77-year-old Audrey McKeever was checking her mail at the tiny post office near the beach.

“I crawled on Green Harbor beach before I could walk,” she said. “I feel at home here. I know so many people.”

McKeever ran the telephone switchboard in Marshfield in the 1950s and also worked as a docent at the Winslow House so she knows her local lore.

“Canal Street takes you to the first canal in the country,” she said. And what about Daniel Webster, the famous politician and farmer whose estate and old law office are all preserved in Green Harbor?